In the ecommerce world, cart abandonment has long been recognized as a critical problem, with countless strategies aimed at reducing those abandoned carts. Businesses track it relentlessly, and for good reason—industry reports show that 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, resulting in billions in lost sales every year. The logic is clear: if a shopper has added something to their cart, they are signaling high intent to purchase.

But what if they never get to the cart in the first place?

There’s a hidden problem that far too many ecommerce businesses are overlooking: search abandonment. This happens when customers leave your site because they can’t find what they’re looking for—often within seconds of landing. Worse, they’re not finding related products that might increase average order value (AOV), such as product bundles or recommendations, because their search experience is fundamentally broken.

The Reality of Search Abandonment

When shoppers fail to find the right products using your on-site search engine, they’ll abandon your site without ever adding items to their cart. Search abandonment can be an invisible problem because it happens long before any cart abandonment tracking can begin, and can get lumped in with generic website bounce rates.

Shockingly, up to 68% of online shoppers will leave a site because of poor search experiences. This is a massive problem for businesses that rely heavily on their search functionality to connect customers to the right products. Think about it: if a customer can’t find what they need, they won’t stick around long enough to even consider buying multiple items or exploring your carefully curated product bundles. What is the bottom line for all of this? Well, ecommerce businesses are losing at least $2 trillion dollars each year from search abandonment.

Why Businesses Focus on Cart Abandonment But Miss Search Abandonment

The ecommerce industry has hyper-focused on solving cart abandonment for a simple reason—it’s trackable. You can see exactly when a customer adds a product to their cart and when they leave without purchasing. There’s an entire ecosystem of recovery tools, like email reminders or retargeting ads, designed to recapture these lost sales.

But what about the silent abandonment happening during product searches? If shoppers can’t even get to the point of adding items to their cart, the best checkout funnel in the world won’t help. The reality is, without solving search abandonment, many businesses are fighting a losing battle. If shoppers can’t find the product they’re looking for, they aren’t going to add items to their cart, and they certainly aren’t going to discover complementary products that boost their total spend.

Generative Discovery: A New Approach to Solving Search Abandonment

Generative Discovery addresses this hidden problem by going beyond simple keyword search. Traditional search engines (and even AI search) rely heavily on matching exact terms. If a shopper mistypes or doesn’t know the exact product name, they’re met with frustrating “no results” pages or an incomplete results list. This issue worsens on sites with large or complex product catalogs where shoppers struggle to find what they need.

Generative Discovery leverages AI and machine learning to understand the intent behind search queries, even when they are incomplete or unclear. It also pulls in historical data and remembers what shoppers preferred in prior visits, learning and adapting to those preferences (much the same way Netflix does for movie recommendations, but now for online shopping!). This transforms the shopping experience into one that’s not just about finding a specific product but also about discovering new products that match the shopper’s intent.

For example:

• If a customer searches for “winter running shoes,” Generative Discovery will not only surface relevant products but also suggest complementary items, such as performance socks or thermal layers, boosting both conversion rates and AOV.
  
• It does this by learning from customer behavior—such as past searches and purchases—and adapting results to better match each shopper’s unique preferences. Instead of seeing the same list of products as everyone else, shoppers see highly personalized recommendations across search, category, and landing pages​.

Amplifying the Power of Product Bundling and Upselling

So as you can see, search abandonment doesn’t just mean losing one sale—it means missing out on the chance to cross-sell or upsell. Even if a customer finds the primary product they’re searching for, they may still be missing related or complementary items that could have been bundled or upsold.

With solutions like Predictive Product Bundling, retailers can automatically suggest complementary products in real-time, based on actual shopping behavior. This increases AOV and creates a more engaging, personalized shopping experience.

For instance:

• A shopper searching for a camera may see a suggestion for a camera bundle that includes a memory card, lens cleaner, and protective case. Without effective search capabilities, that opportunity vanishes.
  
• Or, as customers explore your site, they’ll receive “You May Also Like” recommendations tailored to their preferences, driving more impulse purchases and increasing overall sales​.

Boost Sales with Dynamic Custom Profiles

One of the smartest ways to drive sales and create personalized shopping experiences is by leveraging dynamic custom profiles. Unlike static profiles, which rely on pre-configured filters and sorts, dynamic profiles offer real-time flexibility. They adjust product recommendations on the fly, based on specific customer behaviors, search terms, or filters, providing a more relevant and tailored experience. 

For example:

• A customer viewing a product detail page may automatically see complementary items, such as matching accessories or similar products, without needing predefined rules. 

This dynamic approach not only enhances the customer journey but also increases the likelihood of cross-selling and upselling, leading to higher Average Order Value (AOV) and customer satisfaction.

Solving the Invisible Problem

So, while cart abandonment is certainly a major issue, it’s time ecommerce businesses start paying just as much attention to search abandonment. After all, a shopper can’t abandon a cart if they never find what they’re looking for in the first place.

By investing in technologies like Generative Discovery, businesses can ensure that shoppers not only find the products they need but also discover additional items that increase both satisfaction and revenue. Ecommerce isn’t just about getting shoppers to the checkout—it’s about creating an experience that encourages discovery, engagement, and ultimately, conversion.

Are your customers leaving before they even start shopping? It’s time to rethink how you approach product discovery, and how the right tools can help prevent search abandonment from silently killing your sales potential. Learn more about Generative Discovery in this new playbook from Searchspring.